Leaders in disarray, a plan flawed

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THE Governor of Louisiana was "blistering mad". It was the third
night after hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, and Governor
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of
people from the fetid Superdome and convention centre.

But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal
authorities had arrived.

Ms Blanco burst into the state's emergency centre in Baton
Rouge.

"Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?" she
recalled crying out.

They were an obvious linchpin for evacuating a city where nearly
100,000 people had no cars. Yet the federal, state and local
officials had failed to round up buses in advance and were now
making a frantic hunt. It would be two more days before they found
enough buses to empty the shelters.

The crisis in New Orleans deepened because of a virtual
stand-off between hesitant federal officials and besieged
authorities in Louisiana.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency expected the state and
city to direct their own efforts and ask for help as needed.

But those leaders were so overwhelmed that they were not only
unable to manage the crisis but were not sure what they needed.

While local officials assumed that Washington would provide
rapid and considerable aid, federal officials proceeded at a
deliberate pace.

The emergency agency appears to have underestimated the storm,
despite an extraordinary warning from the National Hurricane
Centre. The agency dispatched only seven of its 28 urban search and
rescue teams to the area before the storm hit and sent no workers
at all into New Orleans until after the hurricane passed on August
29.

A disaster plan prepared by state and federal officials for a
severe storm was incomplete and failed to deal with two critical
issues: transporting evacuees and imposing law and order.

■ The Coast Guard chief who replaced embattled emergency
agency director Michael Brown has pledged to speed up relief
efforts. Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad Allen said he would create a
"single co-ordinating mechanism" that would eliminate confusing and
overlapping bureaucracies.